Posted by Michael Wonder on 22 Nov 2017
A key medicine agency has left Britain. This is the start of a Brexodus.
22 November 2017 - The EMA is gone for good, taking 900 jobs with it. Unless the government intervenes soon, more institutions will follow.
And so it is settled. The EMA will move from London to Amsterdam after Brexit – taking with it nearly 900 jobs, a budget of €322m, and some 40,000 business visits every year, which support local hotels, restaurants, taxis and so on. Also likely to move with the EMA is the attendant industry that congregates around it for easy access to the regulator. It’s a substantial loss of finances, talent, infrastructure and influence.
As the EMA leaves the UK, the question now becomes: does the UK leave the EMA? The EMA is the regulatory body for the single market for medicines, and the two are entwined. Do we want to stay with that market of 510 million people and its regulator, or splinter off as a market of 65 million with our own framework that decides what medical drugs and devices can be developed and sold here?
